Small Town Spin (23 page)

“That’s not what it’s about,” I said. “You ought to take a good look at what you want and why you want it, and turn that greedy self-involved speech right back around on yourself.”

I picked up my coffee and turned back toward my little ivory cube as the elevator doors whispered open to reveal Shelby and Les, whose hair didn’t look nearly as much like George Clooney’s as he thought it did. He’d won the hair club equivalent of the booby prize on Price Is Right.

I scurried off before either of them could say a word, leaving Spence to bitch to them. They could have the “We Hate Nichelle Club” meeting out of my earshot, thank you very much.

They must’ve had quite a powwow, because it took Les an hour to kick back revisions on my fifteen-inch fire story. He wanted the room numbers that were affected and the number of kids involved. Picky Nitpickerson, but it was still better than answering to Shelby. She’d been a real pain in my ass for most of the week.

I dialed Aaron’s cell and got the information I needed, wishing him a happy Saturday. I added two lines to my story and sent it back, clicking my computer off and closing it. I needed some better coffee and good sounding board. Between Thompson’s and Jenna, I had them covered.

21.

Mom view

Jenna’s eyes popped wider by degrees as I talked for half an hour. When I finally sat back in the chair with my white mocha, she shook her head, bouncing her reddish-brown curls, and winced.

“The mom, huh?” she asked.

“I’m just wondering about the psyche here. I’m going to call my friend Emily in Dallas as soon as it’s late enough there for me to call on Saturday without pissing her off. She’s brilliant, but she doesn’t have any kids. You do. Could you see killing for them?”

“If someone was trying to hurt them? Absolutely. For a better spot on the baseball roster? You have to be a special kind of bat-shit to rationalize that.”

I nodded. “That’s what I thought, too. But she’s the president of the PTA. She has access to the kids and the school, right? Someone gave Syd that jar of moonshine, and I think TJ’s party invite came wrapped around one. What if they were gifts from Luke’s mom? She comes from a family that makes the stuff, too.” It occurred to me that the funky label on Sydney’s jar might’ve been a brilliant way to throw suspicion, since Lily’s family didn’t make Triple-X. Then again, it might just mean I was wrong.

“Well, there are people who are just crazy,” Jenna said. “But just to argue the other side for a second: Does Luke have any brothers or sisters?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Only children get doted on more,” she said. “I don’t have time to be invested enough in my kids’ stuff to kill people. Not that I’m saying all people with one kid are loons. But it might explain some of the extreme stuff she said to you. I mean, if she didn’t do it. She’s so into his standing on the team because he’s her only kid and that makes him her whole world. I get that. Doesn’t mean she’s crazy enough to murder someone.”

“Hmmm. And my go-to mom of one source is unavailable for this story.”

“You haven’t told your mom about it yet, huh?” Jenna’s tone turned gentle and she laid one hand over mine.

“I don’t want to, if I can help it. Like, I don’t even want to go ‘look, mom, I saved the day!’ if I can manage to figure this out.”

“Surely she’s seen the reports. It’s been all over everything for a week. Until the day before yesterday, anyway. Now they’re talking about the Middle East and celebrity baby names again.”

“She’s been so busy I wouldn’t count on it, and even if she saw something in passing, that’s different than her knowing what’s really going on here.”

“Then there’s the part where she’ll worry about you playing Nancy Drew again.”

“Well. There’s that.” I chewed a bite of my muffin.

“That looks amazing,” Jenna said.

“I’d offer you a bite, but I spent half the night in the ER getting my ass chewed for not eating.”

“What?”

“Apparently one of the joys of getting old. My blood sugar crashed. Busy day, no food, dancing with Kyle, blah, blah, hospital.”

“First, I take offense at that. If you’re old, I’m decrepit, and I don’t feel decrepit. Second, take better care of yourself. Third, what’s the blah blah in the middle of the evening with Kyle?”

I tried to smother a grin, but it didn’t work.

“Did you?” Jenna’s eyes did the white-all-around thing again. “That guy is smoking hot. And there’s something about a cop, too. I think it’s the big strong protective thing. Maybe I’m not as liberal as I think.”

“I thought you said I shouldn’t rush into anything with him?”

“That was before I met him.” She sipped her coffee. “Because...damn.”

I giggled. “You should have seen him last night. Full on cowboy gear right up to the hat. I thought I was going to fall down when I opened the door.”

“So?”

I sighed. “We probably would have, if I hadn’t passed out. He is a much better kisser than he was ten years ago.”

“Aw, Nicey!” She shoved the muffin at me. “Eat something.”

“It’s so complicated.” I bit into the muffin. “He is hot. And he’s so sweet, and he’s trying to help me with this case. But then there’s Joey. When I’m with him, I think I could find a way to make it work. He’s really a great guy.”

“Except for the whole criminal overlord thing.” Jenna rolled her eyes. “Haven’t you ever seen that movie? You can’t marry into the mob. It even ended badly for Michelle Pfeiffer.”

“He’s not asking me to marry him. But he did say he wanted me the other night.”

“Holy crap.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you sleep with him?”

“Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, right? That’s what Papa Jim always says.” The older couple who lived across the street from my mom had adopted me into their brood of grandchildren when I was little, and he was full of fun one-liners. Like Eunice.

“Close?”

“He was carrying me to bed when TJ’s mom showed up and rang the doorbell.”

Jenna covered her face with both hands. “What a mess. Poor guy. Poor you! Even if I’m not that sweet on him, you seem to be.”

“It’ll work out.” I finished the muffin and set the plate aside, picking up my latte. “So, we do or don’t think Luke’s mother is the killer?”

She puckered her lips. “I think maybe. But from what you told me, she could just be a serious helicopter mom, too. Just because she doesn’t care that the other kid had to die to make a spot for hers, doesn’t mean she killed him, you know?”

“I wonder if that kind of attitude and pressure could have pushed Luke over the edge and made him do it?” I mused.

“That is one I’m not sure I want to touch. How a kid could do something like that. It’s why I like hearing about your job, but I don’t think I could ever do it.”

I nodded.

“Did you figure out how they died yet?” she asked.

“Cause of death is supposed to be back on Sydney Monday or Tuesday, according to the sheriff. I have a new theory about TJ.”

I filled her in on what I’d come up with that morning.

“Sounds logical. But damn. Diabolical. Using the kid’s weak liver to kill him? Then pinning it on him as a suicide? What the hell is the matter with people?”

“I wish I could figure that out.”

We talked for two more lattes, then hugged goodbye.

“Thanks for your insight,” I said.

“Happy to help.” She checked her watch. “But I really have to go. Gabby has a soccer game and Chad gets pissy when I’m late. He has to coach, and keeping up with the baby makes that a little difficult.”

“Kiss her for me and tell her to go get ‘em,” I said, grabbing my little leather evening pouch, which I still hadn’t had time to empty.

“You get some rest. And some food. No gym today,” Jenna admonished in her best mom voice.

“Yes, ma’am.”

I shuffled into my house ten minutes later, scratching Darcy behind the ears when she pawed at my ankle and seriously considering going back to bed. Just as I turned for the hallway, my Blackberry buzzed. I reached into the pouch to grab it, but my fingers bounced off pens and change and my MasterCard without finding the phone. I dumped the bag out on the counter and retrieved it, punching the talk button when I recognized the Mathews area code on the screen.

“Nichelle Clarke.”

“Nichelle, it’s Lyle at the
Mathews Leader
,” the deep voice on the other end of the line said. “Listen, I thought you ought to know, we’ve got another dead kid out here this morning. I figured Zeke wouldn’t call you, and I know how pissed I’d be if that happened to me.”

My breath stopped, Evelyn’s crimson eyes flashing through my thoughts. “Shit. Who is it?”

“Luke Bosley.”

“Good God.” I snatched up my keys. “Thanks, Lyle. I owe you.”

“Maybe it’ll be good karma, or something. Zeke’s still at the Bosley house, but he’ll be at the high school to take questions from the local press in the auditorium when they wrap up there.” Lyle hung up.

I reached to sweep the scattered mess on the table back into my bag when something caught my eye. I picked up the tickets from the dance the night before. The center of the type was faded on the right end of one. And the left end of the other. Not straight across the middle, like the moonshine labels, but similar. I stared at the two tickets for a long moment, my brain shuffling through the images of the labels. I ran a finger along the edge of one ticket. They were cardstock, with perforated edges all around.

Laying them back on the table, I switched them, lining them up end-to-end with the faded type touching. I spread my thumb and finger over the span of the mistake and then held them up, picturing the jars. It was about the same.

The tickets had been printed on the same printer as the labels. As part of sheet that fed through, and then was torn apart. Who would’ve printed both things? Luke’s mother was the PTA president, but the dance wasn’t a school-sponsored event. Still, she might volunteer for other things.

I shook my head, stuffing the tickets back into my bag. Luke was dead. No way his mother was responsible.

“What the ever-loving hell is going on here, Darce?” I grumbled, shoving a cup under the coffee maker and adding white mocha syrup and milk before I twisted the top on, snatched a pack of Pop Tarts out of the pantry, and stomped to the car.

There was something there. But, I was too freaking exhausted to see it, very possibly.

I hopped on the freeway, trying Kyle’s cell. Maybe he could talk me through it. Straight to voicemail. I checked the clock and saw that it was after noon. Sleeping in? I left a message telling him I was on my way to Mathews and asking him to call me as soon as he could.

I tried Joey. No answer. I left him an almost identical message, then dropped the phone into the cup holder as I pulled onto I-64, thinking about the tickets and wondering how I could match the fault with a printer. There must be a few hundred in the county. When I got tired of pondering that, I called Emily.

“What’s up, girl?” She asked in place of “hello.” “I never hear from you more than once every few months, and here you are twice in a few days.”

“I just miss you. Homesick, and all,” I said.

“You don’t, either. You’re working on something you want my help with. You find out more about that dead kid?”

“There are now three dead kids,” I said. “I’m pretty sure this is not the suicide epidemic the sheriff wants to make it out to be.”

“Cops see things in very black and white terms,” she said. “That makes it hard for them to get past an idea once they’ve settled on an explanation.”

“I really wish this dude would get past this. I think it’s going to take a warrant to figure it out.” I explained the similarity between the tickets and the moonshine labels.

“Huh.” She was quiet for a minute. “So, whoever printed the tickets for the street dance printed the labels on the moonshine jars. But only the ones the kids had.”

“Even the kids in Richmond, though, which is the weirder part. That brand is sold out of the back of the auto body shop on the edge of Mathews. The ABC has an undercover guy out there working on a county-wide sting. So how did it end up being sold out of a dorm in Richmond?”

“Did someone fake the labels?”

“And put them on a bad batch of off-brand illegal moonshine?” I asked. “I didn’t think about it that way. Maybe.”

“Or they’re printing labels on two printers and it’s a coincidence,” she said.

“I don’t trust coincidences,” I said. “I’ve covered crime for long enough to know that real ones are few and far between.”

“Good luck,” she said. “For what it’s worth, I’m on your side. I’ve read the coverage all week, and it doesn’t line up. But the sheriff probably won’t listen to me, either. You have any suspects?”

“Only a half a dozen or so,” I said. “I actually had you on my call list this morning to ask if you thought one of the other pitcher’s mothers was capable of doing this. But then her son turned up dead this morning, so there goes that. No way she killed her own kid.”

“How about the other kids at the school?”

“Well, the dead boy was my chief suspect. But there are a couple of others. A girl who had a crush on TJ, and a boy who used to date Sydney have moved to the top of the list.”

“Romantic entanglements can be good motivators for teenage murderers. Either of those kids have a history of violence?”

“Not that I’ve heard about, and everyone knows everything in this town. I can’t figure how the kid who’s dead today fits with the other two as far as motive goes, though.”

“It’s not impossible for a first violent act to be a murder at that age. They don’t yet fully comprehend the permanence of death a lot of the time. And you watch yourself. If you get too close to what’s going on, you might find yourself on the wrong end of an arsenic toddy, too.”

I thanked her for her help, wondering how I might be able to get a little more face time with Eli.